Design Wall Monday - 10/6/14

While this ought to be called I.Have.No.Self.Control…I’m actually leaning towards “Cotton Candy” based on the colors of the various components that I’m not yet showing. This will eventually become a table runner.

It’s like this…Friday night was hexie club and we finally picked an official name: For the Love of Hexies. Awesome, if I say so myself!!!!! On Saturday while working at the quilt store, the owner and I decided we needed a logo for the sign she was going to have made for our group.

Since the group has designated me as the lead troublemaker I started looking around and made an executive decision when something grabbed my attention. Of course, then I spent the rest of the afternoon surrounded by new fabrics and thinking about that great design and how I already had all the paper pieces needed. I was doomed from the beginning…you know that right?!

Since I’m paid in fabric, I picked out a focus fabric and 4 FQs to match. As soon as I got home I fiddled in my stash to find complimentary FQs (each rosette uses 4 shades of a color, black and WOW). I left it sitting out for the next day to make sure I liked them and then cut in to them last night.

And just to prove that I’m not just about the hexies and do use my design wall for more than parts storage...the start of a class sample for a Christmas twister class....

Twisting to the 60s with Batiks and a little help from my Feline Friday Friends!

I hesitated to join this hop at first...Having missed the 60s by a mere 382 days, what did I know about them?! I also never played Twister (gasp!) but I do have a thing for batiks and I do love my twister rulers. I'm actually surprised no one else in the hop has used a twister ruler yet...

I wanted to try designing my own twister pattern but with life (and death) in the way I just wasn't finding inspiration. And then one of the other hoppers sent me something that finally kicked my brain into gear. As soon as I got home I whipped up this simple little tie dye style swirl in EQ7 and picked fabric. Surprise - there is no purple in my project!

I cut out roughly 200 squares and sewed them all together with the requisite borders. Luckily Zorro offered to help with stitching.

I almost forgot to take a picture of the layout but Midgie held it in place for me.

Midgie even held the piece in place while I trimmed out all those tiny pieces.

Eventually I ended up with a wonderful project that I still don't know what to do with. Once I figure that out I'll add borders and quilt it up. It will probably be quilted very simply since there are a ton of seams!

Yeah, at first I was going to press the seams open...
that didn't last long because with enough steam I *can* get it to lay flat w/out opening them up :)

Wondering how big this project ended up? Midgie offered to pose again with the finished project! Quite a difference, no?

Here's another view...yes, that is an American Quarter!

Thank you to all the hoppers who have stopped by today. And thank you to Mdm Samm and Mary for organizing this Hop. Don't forget to check out today's other great projects:

My Quilting Journey

More Stars in Comanche

Read, Quilt, Cook, Pray...

Bquiltin Studio

Sew We Quilt

And since it is also Feline Friday - feel free to link up any post with a feline in it!

Design Wall Monday - 3/11/13

Sewing wise, this weekend was pretty random. I worked on my hexagon puzzle project but no pictures because it doesn't look much different than last time. I had hoped to have the top done and quilted to demo the way I want to finish the edge by the end of the month but I'm not sure it's gonna happen...

I did work on this pieced hexie which is a sample for Hexie Night at the LQS. Now I just need to make it in to something ... and of course I can't decide what that should be ...

Next up are mugrugs in the works. I might be able to participate in a show before a conference I am attending next month so I want to beef up on my stock. I also plan to make more luggage handle wraps and name tag holders. The name tag thingers should be a big hit instead of the generic plastic things they give us.




Puttering

I did some puttering last night...
Another block for my Crazy 8s quilt - a very scrappy quilt with cat fabrics in all colors.

I stitched another pile of selvage pairs

I also fixed up a mug rug I wasn't happy with. I had seen one online made with a twister template of unknown size. I had used the lil twister to make mine but I thought it was way too big. I dug out my bitty twister, trimmed it and I'm much happier with the size. That leaves another cat toy that Squeaky loved playing with last night.

I even cut out another Rose Star block altho I didn't take any pictures...just know that there are stripes. LOL.

I had a good time but I never washed out the dyed fabrics from guild which were "setting" overnight. They will need to be washed tonight...cuz it turns out I am going to the Adirondacks for the weekend to crash with my family who are already there!!! Woohoo!!!

Itty Bitty Twistin' Needs Quiltin'

Happy May Day y'all!
This morning I attended the 119th annual May Day Breakfast at the church up the street from my house. I thought about going when I first woke up at 6:15 (it runs from 6 to 9am) but I just couldn't think about looking presentable that early so I waited an hour :)

Today I am looking for an opinion or three...

I finally finished my itty bitty twister quilt and now it needs quilting. The quilt has a lot of seams and it's pretty stiff, heavy and thick for it's size. The quilt will hang in the stand that Dad made for me and will probably be entered in the mini division at the county fair.

It needs pretty quilting but not dense quilting and I need ideas!! I am no good at stippling (go figure) but I am a confident free motion quilter. I could use a stencil to quilt a wreath over the whole quilt or I could go with some kind of overall FMQ design. I could just do some kind of cross hatching or straightline stitching but I am cautious to stitch in ditch because the seams are pressed open.

Oh and just so you have a sense of scale – this quilt is only 12”. Yes, each square is 1”.

TIA

Chop Chop Chop

I thought I would show you some of the fabric cutting that's been going on here at CasaGrande but I was feeling a little ADHD taking pictures for this post...

I've been cutting bricks from my collection of 1930's for a lattice quilt. I won't won't have pictures of the sewing for quite a while because I still have considerable cutting to do. After the bricks are done, I'll also need to cut squares from that solid purple as well.

 

I've made some progress on my itty bitty twister. You can see how much it shrinks from the original thru the cutting with the tiny template and on to when the seams are sewn. I am not enjoying these open seams. I like my seams flat flat flat and I just can't get these halfway flat. When I put the finished section up on my design wall I put it up front to the wall so it would stay attached - can you see how it sits up "above" the mat? This morning I sewed the 3 middle rows together.

While working on the itty bitty quilt and some bazaar items, I decided I needed another leader/ender project. I had saved a photo of a quilt online that used 4 patches and 16 patches, hence, my working title for this quilt is "4 + 16". Thought provoking, no?  I can't find the link right now but I plan to post more info on the quilt Thursday and I'll have the link then. I have a lot of blue in my strip bins from making a little boy quilt some time ago so I probably won't need to cut any more 2.5" strips but I will need more 1.5" strips since I designed a pieced border in EQ7. It looks great on the screen but it will take considerable cutting, sewing, subcutting and resewing :)

As I dig thru the recesses of my stash to find "new" fabrics, I also find more selvages. You may recall that I have also been gifted some selvages recently. I pressed them all this morning and I hope to cut the 7" sections I need tonight.

This pile is to be cut for making swags for the Bazaar...some of those fabrics I've been "saving" for who knows what. I'm happy to have found a reason to cut into them! It's hard to see but the top left fabric under the pink bias tape has lingerie and then some matching blue and pink batiks in the baggie. Wouldn't that be cute in the laundry room?

Oh wait...let's not forget that cutting fabric for projects means there is also a pile of scraps to cut to size for the scrap bins :)
 
I certainly have my work cut out for me. Oi, didn't mean for the pun but it's there so I'll leave it.
Happy Tuesday!

Another NewFO

Yeh, I never did my March report on NewFO's and UFO's. oh well...
Yeh, I was lazy when I got home from EMT class at 10pm last night and then stayed up to watch a movie I had already seen and then couldn't drag my toukus out of my warm bed this morning. oh well..

I did get a little progress done on my itty bitty twister quilt this morning tho. Yeah!!
I added the first border to the mini quilt:

And I've pressed the seams open per the instructions. It's supposed to help with the small scale of this project. I'm not fond of ironing seams open but I thought I could try it once and if it doesn't help with the finished quilt I won't do it next time.

And then I started cutting blocks. By this point I had to get ready for work so hopefully I can can get it sewn this weekend.


The smaller rotary cutter is definitly helpful when cutting around that tiny template
and solid colored fabric works much better than some of the fabrics I chose.